Episode #20: Rebuilding America: Policies and Investments for National Security
In this episode of U.S. Manufacturing Today sponsored by Veryable, host Matt Horine explores why reindustrialization is vital to both national security and economic resilience. The discussion covers recent policy shifts—including tariffs, trade actions, and federal sourcing mandates—designed to reduce reliance on geopolitical rivals. Matt also examines how major legislation and executive orders are boosting domestic manufacturing through R&D incentives and equipment facility credits. The episode highlights the ongoing technology race with China, evolving labor policies, and efforts to reform the H-2B visa program and pass the Remit Act, all aimed at strengthening the U.S. workforce and retaining capital. Ultimately, the conversation emphasizes the urgent need for American-made materials and industrial innovation to stay ahead of global competition.
Links
Timestamps
- 00:00 Introduction
- 00:45 Policy Updates and Industrial Investments
- 01:49 Reindustrialization and National Security
- 03:31 Enforcement and Workforce Updates
- 05:19 Economic Impact and Future Insights
- 06:56 Conclusion and Upcoming Topics
Episode Transcript
Matt Horine: [00:00:00] Welcome back to US Manufacturing Today. The podcast powered by Veryable where we talk with leaders, innovators, and change makers shaping the future of American industry, along with providing regular updates on the state of the industry, the changing landscape policies and more.
Today we're talking about the tangible levers, policy developments, and industrial investments that underscore a single truth. A commitment to Reindustrialization truly does build first mover advantage and is the most important national security move we could be making right now. We'll provide an update on the policies today from our Veryable blog, some other recent headlines and spotlights on a reindustrialization over the past week, and take a look at some developments from guests of the show and what's ahead.
So let's jump into it. From Veryable's Week 27 update the administration is doubling down with aggressive tariff posture, expanded Section 232, investigations and trade actions aimed at semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and other key inputs. Part of an overarching strategy to reduce [00:01:00] dependence on geopolitical adversaries.
One major highlight, an executive order expected by Labor Day that will begin mandating national sourcing tiers for federally funded infrastructure. This would directly boost tier two and three manufacturers along underserved layer of American supply chains. Meanwhile, the one big, beautiful bill has cemented powerful domestic incentives, permanent full expensing of R&D and equipment, facility investment credits, and domestic content bonuses.
These represent a long-term bet on reshoring beyond short-term trade leverage. Something you should definitely get in touch with your accountant about because the bill is still being unwound and there are a lot of things buried in there. A couple of other headlines this week regarding technology, the technology, race and industrial power, but something most in manufacturing have long seen coming and we're glad it's finally getting the attention it deserves.
There's been a lot of buzz on the phrase Reindustrialization. There was a great conference in Detroit this past week that highlighted the urgency of this as a critical national security issue. US manufacturers [00:02:00] and tech leaders are viewing this moment as a race, not just over tariffs or steel, but innovation, digital infrastructure, and industrial integrity.
There's a lot of talk about the race for the 21st century, fundamentally an American century, but a race against the CCP and China. You may have heard of Belt and Road, but you may not have heard about China's aggressive AI and smart factory push under the banner made in China 2025 or what analysts now call made in China 2.0.
It is built over 30,000 smart factories with ai, robotics and IOT integrations, and if the US doesn't match those investments, we risk for biding leadership. A great quote from the All-In Podcast this week from Chris Power, the founder of Hadrian echoed the sharp urgency calling America's Rebirth and Machine Automation and shipbuilding capacity, a national security imperative.
In another high profile moment for Reindustrialization, he highlighted these challenges with the all-in pod crew and that the 21st century is a race against the CCP [00:03:00] tying directly to the need to scaling defense grade factories that they're building in Arizona and California, creating regional industrial power and first mover capital.
However, a fundamental belief is that Reindustrialization goes far beyond the defense industrial base. It's the shop floor leader, the business owner. Buying more American sourced material, doing the pressing, the stamping, and the machining. Every muscle movement is critical to the overall goal. If you think reindustrializing is just venture capital centric or just defense based related, every piece of industrial mic contributes to the turnaround.
We need pivoting now to some enforcement and workforce updates, and some of our prior episodes, we covered enforcement around non domicile CDLs or commercial driver's license. And the rise of American Truckers United was Shannon Everett. Then enforcement continues to tighten up. Underscoring the compliance and domestic sourcing are no longer optional receiving movement on the non domicile CDL enforcement.
And after months of campaigning by groups like ATU, the Department of Transportation is now rolling out audit checkpoints at [00:04:00] select Intermodal hubs. This is a direct response to concerns around road safety, insurance fraud, and labor market manipulation via shell companies. Critically important for our national security.
We also flagged H-2B Visa reform as a pending story, and today labor policy is up in the air. Pressure is building in Congress to limit or restructure H-2B dependence and to treat reindustrialization not just as an economic policy, but as an opportunity to rebuild a domestic skills pipeline. It's something we highlighted in Clay Martin's episode where the mindset has to shift to citizen first solutions.
Why? Because evidence is mounting that H-2B Visa programs originally intended for seasonal labor are being used to undercut wages in full-time industrial roles. It's all publicly available data, but particularly irritating when companies use Made in America then heavily utilize non-citizen based structures.
There's not really a happy medium here. The labor shortage is a myth, and there's an entire industry propping up visa utilization as a way to backdoor American industrial [00:05:00] resilience. A major component for the overall workforce, especially in manufacturing, is a bill on the table introduced by Eric Schmidt of Missouri called the Remit Act, which seeks to reform remittance taxes to 15%. This is a major effort to Reshore capital and one of the most obvious answers to immigration reform, bringing in significant capital to the Treasury as well. As of late June and early July of 2025, the US has collected over $106 billion in customs revenue from tariffs, taxes, and duties under the administration's trade policies.
The early indication is that they are not as inflationary as people thought they would be. That includes about $27 billion in June alone, pushing total tariff revenue passed a hundred billion. Treasury officials anticipate tariff proceeds could exceed $300 billion by the end of the year, making this one of the largest revenue sources for the federal government and has a significant ability to reduce budget deficits in real time.
Just a suggestion in offering this as a point to reference outside of official data, there's a great tool online called reflation, [00:06:00] which tracks realtime inflation across the board as opposed to the traditional method in CPI. It uses decentralized and blockchain based platform that sources millions of data points.
For manufacturers and operations leaders navigating supply chain cost volatility, tools like truth ablation deliver near instant pricing visibility, a powerful tool for decision making in the era of tariffs and shifting industrial dynamics. It's safe to say official data has been revised. Whether they're jobs, numbers, or other types of economic indicators, but manufacturers have already lived through this.
The markets are just now catching up to the reality on the shop floor, which we've seen for several years. Overall, something really important to drive home about reindustrialization, the through line is very clear. When the US backs manufacturing with real incentives, purpose-built factories, scale, funding and enforcement, it doesn't just rebalance competition, it redefines it, and we'll have some exciting guests coming up to talk about that here in the near future.
Over the next several weeks, we'll be talking about building responsible AI and [00:07:00] manufacturing the people who are rebuilding the reshoring options for domestic makers, industrial cybersecurity, and the continuous threat environment. And we'll bring exclusive insight into how US-based manufacturers are helping rewire global supply chains.
To stay ahead of the curve and to help plan your strategy, please check out our [00:26:00] website at www.veryableops.com and under the resources section titled Trump 2.0, where you can see the framework around upcoming policies and how it will impact you and your business. If you're on socials, give us a follow on LinkedIn, X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram. And if you're enjoying the podcast, please feel free to follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and leave us a rating and don't forget to subscribe. Thank you again for joining us and learning more about how you can make your way.